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Metal Festival Promoter Takes Cash, Runs To The Hills

Our pals at Noisecreep picked up a story about one Dayton, Ohio man on the lam after skipping paying more than 100 bands at last weekend’s Thunder of the Gods Festival in Dripping Springs, Texas. Will Pruett allegedly fled the four-day fest after its second night, leaving the bands and venue owner without pay and canceling the remainder of the event. The fest promised the first US appearance of Stahlhammer as well as performances from Chant, Absu, Helstar, Impaler and more.

With tickets priced between $60 and $150, fans and the bands who made the trip out to Texas are wondering where the money went? A MySpace page set up for the festival has since been removed (last login was May 7), but the last few messages left were from bands, raving mad about how everything went down. One person even chastised Pruett’s selection of vendors. “I’m going to send you a package of this sliding shit that has been falling from my ass for the past two days from the [food from the event]”, wrote one disgruntled patron.

Metal Martyr reports that, on Saturday morning, the bands who were set to perform from that point on discovered that Pruett had fled the scene. He didn’t pay any of the bands, and did not pay for the use of the campgrounds, where the poorly-promoted festival was staged, and that the rest of the festival has been cancelled, leaving dozens of bands stranded at the airport.

According to one report, Absu received a short text message from the promoter soon after it arrived, stating that the concert was cancelled and that nobody was coming to pick them up. Noisecreep tried contacting Pruett, and numbers for him listed under Global Athletic Positioning Firm were disconnected.

Two things my mom always taught me: “never agree to go to a place called Dripping Springs, Texas” and “never screw over a band called Impaler”. So really, lessons to be learned all around.

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This is a sad fucking deal, Dripping Springs is basically part of Austin, and this totally sucks for everyone involved. Luckily my radio show was NEVER a part of this festival, which may have been some kind of indicator to the promotion of the event, but saved my face from being dragged into this shitstorm.

I feel like it gives a bad name to this part of the world, and how we treat our metal fans, bands and everyone else…so on behalf of the Austin Metal Scene, may I apologize, and hopefully we will make it up with a real festival soon enough…

Chuck, keep dreaming. When was the last time there was a big festival/music gathering in AUSTIN of all places???

Danny JD

Sounds kind of similar to the Total Metal Television Festival (TMT Metal Fest) that was supposed to happen August ’08 in upstate New York. Difference is, the festival never even started. All the bands paid, the promoter got arrested for a DUI and fell off the face of the earth. He just resurfaced a few weeks ago, “promises” to refund the money to the bands…

He was supposed to have bands like Attacker, Flotsam and Jetsam, Raven, etc…

c’mon Dan, it could happen…maybe…if you want something done right, what do ya gotta do?

chris

Whew!!!! My band (zombie hate brigade) was invited to play this festival and we had to turn it down because of a mini tour we were getting prepared for. Man I really hope someone runs into this dude, he needs a good beating.

While this promoter does suck (he promised to place radio and print ads 2 months before the event) the Austin media deserves at least some of this blame, 101X included. Sensing looming disaster about 2 weeks before the event, a dozen or so of the Austin bands on the bill printed up extra posters and began blasting out e-mails and press releases to let people like Chuck and all the other local media and in on the fest. Of course, since no formal ad-buys were made, that publicity never made it to one single blog or radio show even in passing. I blame this promoter for the fiasco, but Austin is oversaturated with music press, and thay community let people down by ignoring these bands’ pleas for a few bones worth of free publicity. You gotta pay to cum, as the Bad Brains put it so eloquently.

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